@``ME@
- tallship
Bradley D. Thornton
- Manager Network Services
NorthTech Computer http://NorthTech.US
- TEL: +1.760.666.2703
========================= | Sorcerer Linux | =========================
I've been a longtime Slackware fan (since Slackware first came out), and a UNIX systems administrator / Network Engineer for a couple of decades.
Years ago I came across Sorcerer, back when Gentoo was up and coming, yet never got around to trying it out. I had forgotten all about it until a little while ago someone mentioned that they used Lunar Linux, and in checking it out I found that it was the original fork of Sorcerer Linux.
At that point I recalled Sorcerer, and began reasearching the project which has seemingly disappeared from the annals of history, although it actually does still exist. I've gone back through all of it's web history, from wox, and aaiken, and now it's homed at silverice.
The most interesting thing about Sorcerer, to me, besides the fact that it was heralded as stable by a distrowatch reviewer back in 2002, is that there appears to be a couple of original developers still involved with it, and that these folks are so obscure when you try to find something about them on the net.
The total lack of an organized website is absolutely astonishing to me, as when I installed and ran it everything worked. It looks like it's bailed together with bailing twine, if you look at the website - if you can call its internet presence a web presence.
I read up a bit, from what I could find (and the archives are sparsely scattered about), about how much people liked Sorcerer, yet how Kyle Sallee treated his team members, forcing a break and fork when he was depressed and jobless.
Still, I can't seem to find much information at all about Kyle Sallee on the Internet that wold warrant me trusting my client's systems with his distro, regardless of how stable it has appeared to be for almost a decade (a VERY long time in Linux distro life cycles).
The relative obfuscation of his contact info by his use of gmail, the Sorcerer distro itself NEVER having had a domain of it's own from what I can tell, and the sponsorship by sites and persons who reside in anonymous areas of the Internet (All NIC records associated with any domain where the Sorcerer website was hosted has bogus contact info) really add pause to anyone who would seriously consider the adoption of a distro for use in a production environment.
That, coupled by the fact that it has been documented that Mr. Sallee actually pulled the distro's site down following the fork by the Lunar Linux folks is a serious red flag.
The problem is, that after having a couple of email dialogs with Kyle (Quite a personable advocate of his distro and an effective presenter regarding the philosophy and mechanics behind his distro), I can find no other reason why his distro isn't a phenominal success, aside from having personally destroyed the reputation of his distro by orphaning his user base about eight years ago.
Is he a paranoid recluse? Is he some other actual person? Is there some identifiable reason why he insisted on maintaining such obscurity?
He must understand that this kind of lack of anchoring would almost certainly ensure that his distro would be complete disregarded as a non-viable distro, relegated to the annals of marginal distros and doomed to obscurity.
Yet the concept of what he maintains as a live distro (even though you can't hardly find it by searching through the Internet - even distrowatch has the incorrect URLs) is actually genius, as many here at SMGL have alluded to.
Just exactly who is Kyle Sallee?
========================= | Lunar Linux | =========================
In the course of my research I spent a couple of days checking out all of the reviews I could find concerning Sorcerer, Lunar, and the Source Mage distros of GNU/Linux. With regards to Lunar Linux, what I found were dismal reviews of a distro that upon first inspection of their website, appears to be a well laid out, organized, and stable distribution of Linux.
The various reviewers all (save one), eventually gave up when attempting to install Lunar Linux and get it going. That's enough right there to send any thoughts of trying it out to the bit bucket.
The website looks nice. The docs are relatively mature, and the worst part about having the impression that it's a broken distribution is that Lunar Linux has completely dispensed with all the Hokus Pokus metaphors that really only serve to turn people off in general when adoption of this kind of source distribution is actually one of the best ideas for production machines in the enterprise.
Lunar Linux has also gone the extra mile to distance themselves from Sorcerer, historically, since I can find no mention of their having been based on the Sorcerer distro by combing through their website. I think that was a wise move too, although I personally don't really care what you call things. Heck, it wouldn't really bother me if it was called SatanLinux, but that would be be suicide for for a distro as far as wide-spread adoption purposes are concerned.
What I fail to understand, is that if Sorcerer is so stable and well maintained, compiles out of the box and just runs (and has since 2001), then why is Lunar Linux so broken and innefectual?
========================= | Source Mage Linux | =========================
Well here I am. writing a mini-blog about my travels throughout the obscure, source-based distro world of Linux, and finally settling on SMGL as the only viable platform toward that end at this juncture in time.
Why? Well, first off, the reviews on SMGL are good. And a relatively new release has been committed, although I don't quite understand why the rolling release system isn't used here like it is with Sorcerer - even though the concept is foreign to most users of operating systems.
Also, there's a lack of anonymity. If I'm going to put my clients on a distro track I need to know we're not working with ghosts - no matter how genius they appear to be 
The website looks good, which is good, but it's kinda dificult to actually get around and such. Not a big deal.
I do have concerns whether this distro can actually keep up with the stability and operability that Sorcerer exhibits, however, so I'm giving SMGL a spin and will track my progess with it, along with the stability of the distro.
========================= | Moving Forward | =========================
I guess my biggest concern is that this type of distro will disappear from the planet and be disregarded as a result of ineffectual development and the damage inferred by the Linux community at large resulting from the disharmony and actions taken by some people following the initial fork of Sorcerer.
Even after all these years, SMGL is still touting itself as a 'beta' distro (a good thing, until all of the issues are worked out IMO), having a "rolling" release version of 0.10.0
It's hard for me to determine, at this point, the actual state of development within the SMGL community, but I'm expecting a robust and active environment that I can lend my hand to.
I still continue to hold out hope for Sorcerer, since nothing else seems to compare, operationally, and the internals of the system appear to be completely understood by its creator/maintainer, Kyle Sallee.
Until such time as these issues I've raised regarding his obscurity and the dismal public facade his distro exhibits, I really don't see any wide-spread adoption of his distro beyond that of the casual hobbiest.
So for now, it looks like I'm throwing the majority of my source-based distro cards into the SMGL camp! 
========================= | Closing Remarks | =========================
I can be reached by following the contact information at the top of my profile page here.
If you have any comments or remarks, please don't hesitate to contact me.
If you have ANY inside, or informed information regarding the actual historical history of this series of source-based distros I REALLY want to talk to you!
I believe that a rollout and adoption policy in the enterprise of this type of system is where I want to go, and need to know a whole lot more about where it's going and how stable it's going to remain for the next several years before I bank my client's infrastructure on this model - for their sake and mine
If you want to get a hold of me, my website has several contact methods, my business phone number is posted above, or if you're in a hurry you can reach me anytime via Skype - my username is 'tallship'. If I'm not immediately available I will get back to you, so please be patient.
Kindest regards,
Bradley (tallship)
Email: <you AT SPAMFREE example DOT com>
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